Another Knitting Bag

Making Mothers Day presents is not easy when your Mother is also a bit of crafter...but she's not really one for making things with a sewing machine so making her a bag is a good choice. She's into her knitting at the moment and apparently stashes her knitting in a carrier bag when she's done for the day...can't have her doing that.

For Mothers Day I made her a knitting bag to stash her unfinished projects in, using the tutorial over at Emmaline. I've used this tutorial previously to make my Nan a knitting bag for her christmas present, here's the post if you want to see it again.

This time I used a pair of circle handles rather than twisted rope effect, just means the bag will look totally different to my Nan's bag. The fabric is different too but I wanted to experiment and see how it would look using different handles as it changes the shape of the top of the bag.

Once again there's a pocket inside with one of my handmade labels sewn to it.

Hopefully Mum likes her new knitting bag and it shall keep her knitting safe in a more stylish manner than a plastic carrier bag.

 

Making A Peg Bag

Presents for grandparents are not an easy thing, if they want something they've probably already gone and bought it for themselves by now anyway. So for my Nan's birthday this year I decided to try out a sewing pattern I'd been keeping hold of from a magazine for ages.

The pattern was for a peg bag, not a massively exciting present but handmade and something that she couldn't just nip into the shops and buy.

Here's what the peg bag looks like.

The hardest part of this project was trying to find a curved small wooden hanger to fit into the peg bag, in the end I bought some kids wooden hangers from Ikea and they are perfect for the job. As my hanger is a slightly different shape to the simple curved one used in the pattern the end result of my project is slightly different to the original pattern but that just adds my own personal twist to it.

 

The lining fabric is from a stash I bought at a vintage show a couple years back that I've just never found a good use for until now. Be prepared to see more of the outside fabric in a post I'll be sharing after Christmas as I've used it for someone's Christmas present. The bag is held closed by a chunky vintage deep pink button and a small loop of ribbon.

Here's hoping Nan likes her new peg bag and she doesn't think I've given her a dull birthday present.

Knitting Bag

 At a fabric show earlier in the year my nan found out I was making handbags for the women in the family for christmas so she asked me to make her a knitting bag for christmas...this was my plan all along but at least with her asking I could get her to pick a fabric that she liked.

 So she picked a dark blue dragonfly print fabric and some plastic twist handles that look like they are wooden. I had plenty of lining fabric leftover from the handbags I made so that was nice and easy.

 I always tend to buy more fabric than I need, anyone else have that problem too?

I roughly followed the tutorial over on the Emmaline blog here.

I stitched in a large interior pocket to store smaller bits in. I ever remembered to sew one of my hadmade labels on the pocket as well.

Quite a roomy bag and I'm really impressed by it. Took me longer to whipstitch the fabric around the handles than to cut all the fabric out and make the basic shape of the bag!

My nan has a thing for giraffes and I managed to pick up a few giraffe buttons at the show without her realising so I've sewn them onto the internal pocket, see how long it takes her to notice them.

 Here's hoping the bag lives up to the expectation and it has many happy trips to the local knitting club my nan goes to. 

November Card Club Pt 1

 So the first card club of November wasn't really a normal card club night...we had more of a workshop making 3d items to inspire us for christmas.

The first thing we made was a giftbox. I must admit I hate using the Envelope Punchboard with a passion but for some unknown reason I found the Gift Box Punchboard a lot easier. Anyone else have this issue or is it just me?

 I used:

• Gift Box Punch Board
• Under The Tree Speciality DSP
• Cherry Cobbler Sheer Linen Ribbon

 Then we moved on to my favourite project of the evening, I've been wanting to play with this die for ages as Pinterest has shown me so many good ideas to use it for. I coloured my pearls in using my cherry cobbler blendabilities so they looked like berries. Inside this little christmas pudding was a ferrero rocher...yea i ate that when I brought the pudding box home.

I used:

• Curvy Keepsake Box Thinlit
• Whisper White cardstock
• Early Espresso cardstock
• Under The Tree Speciaility DSP
• Jewels Basic Pearl
• Cherry Cobbler Blendabilities

The next project was a giftcard holder, or money holder as was suggested by Suriya who was running the workshop.

I used:

•  Dots mask
• Coastal Cabana ink
• Gift Card Enclosure Pack
• Metallic Bakers Twine
• Mossy Meadow ink
• Sponge Daubers

 Suriya must know that I get through masses of notebooks a year as there was a notebook project on the to do list as well... I kept mine rather simple as it will no doubt end up in my work bag and get a tad dirty.

I used:

• Kraft Grid Journal
• Stars mask 
• Coastal Cabana ink
• Sponge Daubers

Then there was a candle to work on...

I used:

• Heat Tool
• Tissue Paper
• Real Red ink
• Mossy Meadow ink
• Festival of Trees stamp set

Using some of the spare card I had I made myself a dozen tags to go on presents.

I used:

• Whisper White cardstock
• Festival of Trees stamp set
• Mossy Meadow ink
• Tag Topper punch

There were also some card blanks to make 5 cards. really love this stamp set and it's so easy to use, it's one of the new photopolymer sets.

I used:

• Whisper White cardstock
• Mossy Meadow ink
• Real Red ink
• Pear Pizzazz ink
• Wondrous Wreath stamp set

The final project was a fabric bag to decorate.

I stamped different images from the same stamp set on either side of the bag.

I used:

• Mini Muslin Bag 
• Mossy Meadow ink
• Crushed Curry Chevron Ribbon
• Many Marvellous Markers

November card club Pt 2 is on the 23rd and it's more 3d projects but this time playing with the stanmp set Lovely As A Tree. 

 

If anyone has pinterest or blog links to projects using this stamp set can you share them with me as a comment for future inspiration please?

Making Penguins

So I will admit I have a bit of a penguin obsession, I know...

Last year I made some icing penguins for our christmas cake, they were very fiddly and it was such a shame to have to eat them... so this year I decided to make some out of fimo instead so they could be reused and not eaten.

The white fimo of the penguins is glittery making them a little bit more festive, can't wait to see them on our christmas cake...now I just need to design the rest of our cake.

The other bit of penguin madness started at the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace a few weeks ago.... Mum bought me a half metre of penguin print fabric that I just couldn't leave behind. I made myself a tote bag from the fabric and still have enough left to make another makeup bag or something of a similar size.

 Anyone else get the pont that I kinda really like penguins???

Baby Present Bundle

Some friends recently had their first child and they decided to keep it a surprise rather than find out the gender before he/she was born so I had to make a bundle of gifts that weren't too girly or too boyish.

Turns out they had a little boy, called him Oscar, as they had a surprise they didn't have many things that were blue, lucky for me I did a few blue bits and pieces.

So heres my first ever attempt at making a diaper bag, I used the tutorial over at Sew Much Ado that can be found here. A days work and cursing at the sewing machine....how much of a faff are pockets and elastic tops to the pockets?!  

I stuffed the pockets full of all the other goodies I made for baby Oscar...well after all the time I spent making the pockets right I decided I had to use them.

Normal style bibs, bandana bibs, burp cloths and a soft door closer were the goodies I stuffed into the pockets.

    They seemed to like their goodies so hopefully we shall be seeing them in use soon. The last batch of bibs I made for my nephew were in full use out in Spain when they came out on holiday too, so it's good to see all the bibs are working well and being used.  

Been Making Totes

So I mentioned in my earlier post Elephant Make Up Bag that I was going to be making a lot of fabric presents for friends and family this year.. well here are the presents for the May birthday ladies.

The first tote was for my Mum and she has an obsession with hearts, so I used some of the leftover fabric I had from the apron I made her.

 The second tote was for a friend who works for VW so when I saw this super VW camper van fabric I knew I had to get some and make her something from it.

 I faffed about with where to cut the sections from the piece of fabric I had to make sure both sides had a full camper van on. As there's so many cool campers on the fabric I made sure both sides had a different coloured camper showing so she can decide which side should be showing depending what colour she likes on the day.

Great present to give people and really easy to whip up...can see a few more of these being given out as presents this year!

Tote Bag

 Ages ago I won a bundle of goodies from the lovely ladies over at Live It Love It Make It loads of fabric sewing kits to play with. The kits sat in fabric stash box for ages till I finally decided on a day off that I'd start playing with them, the tote bag seemed like it'd be the easiest so I thought it'd be a good starting point.

 Love the colour of the fabric and the awesome turquoisey blue thread that came with the kit. The little owl was an applique that my Nan stuck into my handmade birthday card that she knew I'd find some purpose for in the future. Been a very useful little bag, it seems to have become my bag for taking my card making goodies to and from card club. Only thing I might change for next time is having the straps sewn into the inside of the bag instead as sewing the perfect X's on the front wasn't easy and with a more visible colour thread would be a nightmare to make look neat.

 

Blog Swap with Kassi From Truly Lovely

Well today is the start of something new for me.. I'm having my first ever blog swap.. with none other than the lovely Kassi From Truly Lovely.. enough of me nattering I'll hand you over to Kassi....

I am SO excited to be blog swapping with the lovely Steph here today!!
If you're having Steph withdrawals (as I'm sure you are...)
You can visit her over on my blog, Truly Lovely,
today where she is guest posting as well!

In the meantime, I am Kassi from the blog Truly Lovely!

We are just over TWO WEEKS from our June wedding!!!
Right now much of my life and my blogs are consumed with wedding planning.... Trying to wrap up all the last minute details of course!

If you'd like to follow my wedding planning in more detail,

I have a 'just for the wedding' blog over here. :)

A wedding craft that I did just for me, just for fun, was my Bride Bag!

Every bride needs a handy little bag to carry around the wedding planning essentials!

So...

I am so excited to be able to share my Bride Bag tutorial with you today!
The same concepts can be applied to make a Momma Bag, Shopping Bag, or work tote!

Materials Needed:

• Plain Tote
  

• Sticky backed Vinyl or other stencil


• Fabric Paint


• Iron on embellishments (I used my wedding flowers, daisies)


• Cute little craft iron... Or a regular iron will do ;)
  
  (All these materials were Christmas gifts from my sweet sister, so thanks Miss Kayli for gifting me some awesome craft supplies!!)
  

First, I used my new Silhouette SD (Christmas gift from the hubs-to-be) to cut out the lettering, "Kassi's Bride Bag June 2011".

Next, I pulled the cutout lettering away from the vinyl sheet.

This became the stencil.

Then I peeled the backing off of the vinyl and stuck it to the tote.

*Tip - Sticky backed vinyl is great because once the backing is removed you can stick it onto pretty much anything and it'll last long enough to work as a stencil.

The only fabric paint I had at the time was puff paint... but that wasn't the look I was wanting for my bag... So I improvised...

I just used a small paint brush to brush the puff paint onto the stencil... I used pink and turquoise paint, my wedding colors of course!

It took a few coats of the puff paint to get it dark enough on the black tote to pop, but once I got those coats on, I just left it to dry overnight.

The next morning I simply peeled the vinyl stencil from the tote and walla, insta-tote wording!! :)

To spice it up a bit, I ironed on a few daisies (my wedding flower of choice) using my nifty little craft iron! (Again, thanks Kayli!)

The next, and final step is to fill your new Bride Bag with all the wedding planning essentials!!

In went my wedding planning notebook, wedding ring brochures, hand written guest list draft, and our engagement pictures CD.

I literally carry this bag with me everywhere I go!!

At less than two weeks til the wedding, it's so nice to have everything I need right on hand in my handy little Bride Bag!

This picture was taken by my Maid of Honor, Miss Kayli of course, after a LONG day of trying on wedding dresses!!!

As you can see, it'll wear a girl out! ;)

But the Bride Bag in tow means less stress for the bride-to-be!!!

Thanks again to Miss Steph for having me over!!! :)

Always happy to share with my bloggie besties!!!

Clutch bag makeover (take 2)

Seeing as blogger rudely deleted my post from yesterday of my clutch bag and didn't return it to my blog as their maintenance page informed me it would I'm having to repost it again!

So a small dilemma happened when I last wanted a black bag for night out.. my little black clutch bag looked sad, worn and well, hideous to be honest... in the end I changed my whole outift as I didn't want to be seen with such an awful looking bag. The other day I had a brainwave and thought I could make it over as it's only the outer fabric that's shabby.

And after a little bit of thinking and throwing fabrics out of the drawer this is what I came up with....

If you want have a go at this too then you'll need:

• a clutch bag
• complementing colour fabric
• fabric flower
• 22 x 6mm beads
• glue gun
• scissors1. First I cut the lacy fabric off (this was the bit that was amking my bag look awful so it had to go). The fabric underneath is great and is the same as the fabric I used for the leaves to cover it.
  
  2. Take your fabric and cut it into little pieces, one for every leaf. Make a small pile of fabric, draw a leaf on the top piece and cut it out, repeat till you have enough to cover the bag. (I needed 36 to cover my bag)
  3. Start by glue gunning the first leaf at the bottom of the metal frame.
  
  4. Continuing glue gunning the leaves along the bottom of the bag.
  5. Continue by sticking leaves in layers that just about cover the top of the leaves on the layer beneath.
  7. Glue the top layer as close to the metal frame as possible. Don't worry if there's a little glue overspill as the beads will cover this.
  8. Start glueing the beads along the lower edge of the metal frame, removing excess glue before it dries.
  9. Continue glueing beads on till there's enough along the frame to mirror the starting point on the opposite end. 10. Add the fabric flower as an embellishment and then the bag is finished!
  Looks 100 times better than it did when I started and now I'm more than happy to take it out with me :) If the fabric flower isn't your taste then skip the last step as it still looks good without it, or perhaps add a different embellishment to suit the outfit you want it to go with.